Lectrobox Arduino Keypad Shield with 16-Button Matrix Keypad
This is the software library for Lectrobox's Arduino Keypad Shield, a combination of hardware and software that makes it easy to integrate a 16-button keypad into your Arduino sketches. The keypad, shield, and mounting hardware are all designed to work together for a true plug-and-play solution. The keypad can either be mounted directly on the Arduino or connected remotely using a standard Ethernet cable. The shield communicates with the Arduino via TWI, using only the SDA and SCL pins, and does not consume any digital inputs. It's compatible with both 8-bit and 32-bit, 5v and 3.3v Arduinos. The hardware package, which includes a shield, a keypad, and a small RJ45 interface adapter for remote keypad mounting, can be purchased at Amazon.
Supported Arduinos
The shield and library have been tested and are known to work on a variety of Arduino hardware:
AVR-based Arduinos and clones:
- Arduino Uno R3
- Elegoo Uno R3
- Arduino Leonardo
32-bit Arduinos:
- Arduino Zero
Intel Curie Arduinos:
- Arduino 101
Unsupported Arduinos
Note that the shield does not support older (pre-R3) Arduinos such as the Uno R2, Uno R1, Diecimila, Duemilanove, and others that do not have SDA and SCL pins as part of the digital pin block.
Documentation
The small example program demonstrates how to use the Shield library. The basic steps are:
-
#include "KeypadShield.h" in your sketch
-
Declare a KeypadShield object
-
Call keypadShield.begin() in setup()
-
Call keypadShield.getNextKeypress() to query the shield for a recent keypress
-
getNextKeypress() will return 0 if no keys have been pressed, or the character that was pressed. Possible values are the characters '0' through '9', the letters 'a through 'd', 's' for star, and 'p' for pound.
For full documentation or to purchase hardware, see the Keypad Shield's Main Site.